SFF of Ceramic Parts: Literature Overview and Direct Experiments
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SFF of Ceramic Parts: Literature Overview and Direct Experiments Gian N. Babini, Andrea Fedele, Luca Settineri1 Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali Ceramici, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche via Granarolo 64, 48018, Faenza (RA) – Italy. 1 Politecnico di Torino, Dept. of Production Systems and Economics C.so Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129, Torino - Italy ABSTRACT The great development of Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) techniques from their introduction into the market, more than 20 years ago, has fueled their diffusion in the mechanical sector to the point that they are today an indispensable component of the process of designing, engineering and producing a mechanical parts. At the same time, these techniques found application in different and even distant sectors, like biomedicine or architecture. This lead to the necessity of developing SFF processes suitable for materials different from those they were at the beginning thought for. Such techniques, taken from the original ones or entirely developed ex-novo, allowed for a surprising differentiation of the applications. The fabrication of ceramic parts by SFF techniques is a relatively new field which is widening the role of such materials in sectors not traditionally covered. The present paper reports a state of the art of the techniques that appear more effective for the production of ceramic goods, with representative or even functional properties. Further, some results of 3D Printing experiments of alumina parts will be presented. INTRODUCTION Increasing competitiveness means, among other things, reduction of the time to market, intended as the time elapsed between the ideation of a product and its introduction into the market. To reach this goal it is necessary to shorten the duration of all the development phases of the product and of the production process, through the fabrication of physical or virtual models (prototypes) of the various development stages of the part [1]. In this context, increasing diffusion has been gained by “Solid Freeform Fabrication” (SFF) techniques, generic expression by which Rapid Prototyping (RP), Rapid Tooling (RT) or Rapid Manufacturing (RM) are indicated. SFF techniques allow for the production of complex geometries in short times starting from their 3D CAD model. The parts are then fabricated layer by layer, transforming the problem from tri-dimensional to bi-dimensional: for this reason SFF techniques are also defined layer manufacturing techniques. Even if the single processes are different, they consist of the same basic phases: it is first of all necessary to create a CAD tri-dimensional model and to convert it in a format that has become the standard for these operations: the STL (Solid To Layer) format. This is a simplified representation of the internal and external surfaces of the part by means of triangular facets. It is then necessary to perform another software operation, called “slicing”, i.e. the intersection of the model with a series of plans, with normal parallel to the fabrication direc
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